


Standing In The Rubble

by orphan_account



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M, this kills me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1578287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the viewpoint of Katniss Everdeen, we see another side of Haymitch Abernathy. A darker past that adds on to everything he has already gone through.<br/>How many times has Haymitch been forgiven?  </p><p>So why can't he forgive himself?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standing In The Rubble

“My favorite color is pink.”  
Posy’s gaze falls on me expectantly. Her gray, Seam eyes meet mine as I feel the innocence of the question, indirectly asked.  
‘Mine is green,” I announce, as if I wasn’t pressured into it by a girl who can’t tie the bow in her own hair. I say this loud enough for the entire table to hear. Loud enough to show them I am not broken.  
The table, a wholly depressing ensemble, features Gale, sitting across from me, his mind working as he eats in large bites. Out of everyone, Gale has prospered the most in Thirteen. His knowledge of snares and traps, acquired from years in the woods spent feeding his family, is finally being put to work on a much larger scale.  
My old prep team sits in a row. They murmur to each other with grim expressions occasionally, but interact with no one beyond that.  
Gale’s younger siblings sit on either side of me. They finish their food before anyone begins to think about starting their own, eagerly gobbling up the food they were so deprived of in Twelve.  
Haymitch sits on one end of the table, lost in the nightmares that seem to follow him through each sober day he spends here in Thirteen.  
Peeta sits on the other end, as far away from me as possible. His hands are on the table, the metal cuffs attached to the underside of his chair.  
Add me in the middle of it all, with a “MENTALLY UNSTABLE” bracelet, and we are by far the most pathetic group of people in the lunch hall.  
“Do you mean green like Octavia?” Posy inquires.  
Octavia peers up from her lunch, which hasn’t been touched. She shifts in her seat, unconsciously kneading at the raw skin, shadows of shackles that scar both of her wrists.  
“Green like Octavia.” I confirm.  
One sickly, olive hand comes from under the table and raises a small spoonful of soup to a pair of sickly, olive lips. Small, but the first thing I’ve seen Octavia eat for days.  
“What about you?” Posy is on to her next victim: Gale.  
His face takes on a softness I only see when he talks to Posy,  
“Oh, you know I’m a sucker for green.” He says, with a mouth full of food, beaming at his little sister. She giggles profusely, to say the least.  
Gale’s eyes find mine, and their old spark of raging rebellious determination reappears so quickly, I can’t tell if they were ever cheerful in the first place.  
My gaze breaks away from Gale and to Posy. Her wide eyes are staring up at Haymitch, who has finally sobered up enough to leave his room. Blonde hair falls into his line of vision, focused on the plate in front of him, but never moving to pick up a fork. He sits rigid in his seat, as if being watched from behind. Although his gray eyes are centered right in front of him, they flicker, flinching as he watches the endless 24-hour special of the Games, a show only he can see, and can’t escape without the bottom of a bottle.  
Gales’ mouth opens to direct Posy’s attention towards something other than this broken man in front of her when the broken man speaks.  
“Personally,” Haymitch pauses to look up at Posy, tilting back to let his hair out of his face, “I like pink.”  
This releases another set of uncontrollable giggles from her. Haymitch smiles with a sort of fond amusement towards the young girl.  
“Pink? But you’re a boy,” Rory sneers with a laugh, very much unlike the one dispersed from his sister.  
Haymitch sits back in his seat, sizing Rory up, smile gone. Slowly and meticulously, he leans over to grab the boy’s bland muffin.  
Rory calls out, but Haymitch finishes the muffin in one bite, taking away the little joy in this monotonic hole in the ground.  
Gale offers Rory his muffin quietly, as Haymitch recedes back into the nightmares that cast long shadows over his thoughts, day after day.  
Peeta catches my gaze, but my eyes drift to the shackles on the table and he is focused on his pears before I can say anything.  
Suddenly, I see the boy with blonde hair on the cave floor. Fear spirals through my mind. If this boy dies, it will be my fault. If I had grabbed a different bag at the Cornucopia. If I had tried to protect him. If I hadn’t been so quick to dismiss him as an enemy. If Peeta-  
I come back to reality. That might have been Peeta in the cave, but not anymore. Peeta sits here with me, dark circles under each eye, bruised wrists, slumped against the back of his chair. This is Peeta now. Every sign of the boy with the bread has disappeared.  
I am about to offer Rory my muffin, as well, when a voice echoes across the tables.  
“Haymitch?”  
The voice belongs to a girl. People turn around from their meals, eager to search out the small and unsteady voice.  
I look up curiously to see a young woman, standing as if about to run forward. Her skin is pale. She has thick curves and hair that barely touches her shoulders. A long, white scar runs across her cheek, starting at the hairline and pointing off near her chin.  
Immediately, my mind starts to analyze this girl’s backstory. Most likely a victor from one of the past games, judging from the scar. Might have mentored beside Haymitch.  
Her gaze cuts through the mass of people like jagged ice and connects with Haymitch’s frozen and no longer vacant expression. He slowly rises from the table, gripping onto the watery blue of her eyes.  
He pauses before taking three hastily put and rushed steps forward, stumbling over himself.  
The girl steps backward, instinctively flinching, but her hands stay at her sides, as if preparing to take the blow aimed at her, rather than preparing to hit back.  
The possibility of a past victor is immediately wiped from prospects. The lack of offensive doesn’t support, and the way her jaw tightens up suggests that she’s been somehow trained not to fight back.  
The idea sets me at unease.  
“Arabella?” Haymitch’s voice cracks and she runs at him. He staggers back on the impact, his arms at his sides. The girl, Arabella, has her face buried into Haymitch’s shoulder when she says, only for him to hear, softly, but not enough, “I thought you were dead.”  
Haymitch’s expression turns from disbelief to an emotion I’ve never seen on him before.  
His arms easily wrap around her shoulders, eyes closed, and they stand there quietly, when the shrill alarm signaling activity-change rings out.  
Masses of people head to the disposal chutes. They weave in and out, hundreds. The noise of chatter and whining and comments and laughter and voices and voices and voices fill up the air, until I am swept away. The crowd bustles toward the doors and I am elbowed into it.  
As I reach the hall, I crane my head back, only to see Haymitch and this Arabella clutching each other with the same intensity from the moment she crashed into him. They hadn’t moved, or even seemed to acknowledge the mass exodus around them. The two stood there, gripping onto each other, as if the world had melted around them. And there they were, standing in the rubble.


End file.
